Daly City officers cleared in killing after standoff

Updated 3:11 pm, Friday, May 30, 2014

(05-30) 15:10 PDT PACIFICA -- Two Daly City police SWAT team officers will not face criminal charges for fatally shooting a man accused of stabbing an officer at the end of a six-hour standoff in Pacifica, prosecutors said Friday.

The officers were part of a team responding to reports from Chang's mother, saying that he "needed psychiatric help because he was paranoid," Wagstaffe said.

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She told dispatch when she called just before 11:52 a.m. that Chang had a small ax on him. When Pacifica police officers approached Chang in his backyard, the district attorney's report said, he "was irrational, exhibiting paranoia by claiming that President Obama was trying to assassinate him, and accusing the officers of wanting to kill him."

As they tried to talk to him, he raised his ax to the officers several times, putting it down when they pointed their guns at him, the report said.

The officers called for help and two other officers tried to shock Chang into submission with Tasers. But the devices had little effect on Chang, who pulled out the prongs and barricaded himself in his home, the report said.

Wagstaffe said Chang's father - who along with Chang's brother had been trying to aid the officers - advised them that there was a .22-caliber rifle in the home but that he had separated the ammunition from the weapon and hidden it because he feared his son would use it.

The Daly City police SWAT team arrived on scene and tried to make contact with Chang using a cell phone, the family's landline, a loudspeaker and a "throw-phone," the report said. Chang's doctor did not respond to calls for assistance at the time.

The officers deployed flash-bang canisters, which forced Chang to appear at the front of the house, but he did not exit. Command staff directed the team, Officers Busalacchi and Woelkers included, to enter the home to extract him, Wagstaffe wrote.

The SWAT team then reportedly tried to remove a barricade of furniture and mattresses that Chang had constructed, but were unable to do so. Busalacchi tried to jump over the barricade, swinging his legs over and holding himself up by his elbows.

With the rest of the team on the other side, Busalacchi said he saw Chang emerging out of the flash-bang smoke, according to the report.

"He's got a knife!" Busalacchi yelled. But because of the position he was in - holding himself up on top of the barricade - he could not get away as Chang attempted to stab him in the face, Wagstaffe said.

He said Busalacchi blocked the knife, sustaining a non-life threatening wound to his arm before firing his handgun at Chang's chest. At about the same time, Woelkers positioned himself behind Busalacchi, pointing his rifle over the barricade, and fired at Chang, the report said.

Each officer reportedly fired multiple shots.

Chang's family told investigators that he had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and had been behaving irrationally for several days prior to his death. He had fired the family gun into the ceiling, the incident that his father said led him to hide the weapon and ammunition.

The father "also informed officers that he had begun barricading himself in his room at night so that he could sleep without fear that the decedent would kill him as he slept," Wagstaffe wrote. "He told officers, 'I risked my life as long as I could.' "

Before police arrived that day, Chang "had hugged his family members, told them that he loved them, and thanked them for all they had done for him," Wagstaffe wrote. The family told investigators they believed he was saying "his goodbyes."

Efforts by The Chronicle to reach family members Friday were not immediately successful.

"It is our belief that both officers conducted themselves in a professional, reasonable and proper manner and to the last moment sought to avoid the very result demanded by the conduct of Errol Chang," Wagstaffe wrote.

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